Xbox Live Gold is not good value, and it is holding the 360 back

[NJ5]

JaggedSac said:

NJ5 said:

JaggedSac developers can have dedicated servers, but does Microsoft subsidize them? Or is it just the developer's expense without getting a share of the Live revenue? I'm not saying MS should pay for everything, but if they're collecting money for the online system they should be partly responsible for improving the online performance.

 

I don't know if MS has any deals with external clients, and I am not even sure if they should give money to them for their own dedicated servers.  If MS thought dedicated servers were necessary to the backbone of their service, they obviously would offer them.  But they figured a scalable architecture would be best for a platform wide offering.  And I tend to agree with this sentiment. 

I also enjoy the fact that MS offers platform wide services such as parties and invites.  Me and my buds will join up in parties and jump from game to game with ease.  The party system also integrates very well with the matchmaking system.  So we go from game to game and just have a blast.  It is this simplicity, reliability, and ubiquity that I enjoy about Live.  Sit on my couch and play online games with my friends.

Player-hosted servers are only scalable from MS's cost perspective, as they don't need to spend a lot of money on servers for more players. The match making servers are an expense, but they pale in comparison to the bandwidth and CPU power that a game server needs.

For actual game-playing (the core function of online gaming), player-hosted servers are not scalable, which is why many 360 games support less simultaneous players than PC games.